"As far as I see," he said, after long hesitation, "you and I have two irreconcilable duties. My duty is to marry Evie; yours is to prevent me. In that case there's nothing for either of us but to forge ahead, and see who wins. If you win, I shall bear no malice; and I hope you'll be equally generous if I do."
"But I don't want to win independently of you. If I did, nothing could be easier."
He tossed up his hand with one of his fatalistic Latin gestures, drawing the attention of the passers-by to the man and woman talking so earnestly. For this reason, and because she was losing her self-command, she hastened to take leave of him.
Arrived at home, it gave her no comfort to find Charles Conquest--the most spick and span of middle-aged New-Yorkers--waiting in the drawing-room.
"I thought you might come in," he explained, "so I stayed. I have to get your signature to the papers about that property in Montreal. I've fixed the thing up and we'll sell."
"That sounds as if you weren't glad to see me," he laughed, "but I'll ignore the discourtesy. Here," he added, unfolding the documents, "you put your name there--and there--near the L.S."
She carried the papers to her desk, and sat down to write. Conquest took the liberty of old friendship to stroll about the room, with his hands behind him, humming a little tune.
"Well," he said suddenly, "has he come back?"
He had not approached the subject, beyond alluding to it covertly, since the day she had confided to him the confused story of her hopes. She blotted her signature carefully thinking out her reply.
"I've given up expecting him," she said at last.
She pretended to be scanning the documents before her so as to be able to sit with her back to him.
"It isn't, for the reason that there's--no _way_," she said, after some hesitation.
"Oh yes, there is," he laughed, "where there's a will."
"I'll tell you what you have got," she said, half turning and speaking to him over the back of her chair. He drew near her. "You've got a great deal of common sense, and I want to ask your advice."
"I can give that, as radium emits light--without ever diminishing the original store."
"Then tell me. Has one ever the right to interfere where a man and a woman--"